The Great Depression which hit the world in 1929 had a massive impact on the United States and the world. Once the stock market had collapsed in the United States, it affects started to leak throughout the world and had a great impact on Europe. Since Europe was already trying to recover from a great crisis at the time, it put Europe in a greater dilemma. One of the countries that the Great Depression had affected the most was Germany. This period in Germany was going to be some of the countries darkest moments in histories.
Germany had already been trying to recover from the affects of the war. At the time Germany had to rebuild their economy, since it was destroyed by the League of Nations due to their defeat in World War I. In addition to rebuilding their economy they had to pay the Allied countries billions of dollars for the damages that Germany had caused while fighting against the allied countries. For Germany to be able to pay the loans to the allies, they had been getting loans from the United States and using that money to ay the allies. However once the United States went into crisis no more money was coming into Germany. Because of this crisis, inflation had shot high for the German economy.
Prior to the depression Germanys currency was already fading. The exchange rates between the dollar and the mark would be colossal, to the extent were one dollar would be equivalent to trillions of German marks. But it did not take to long for the depression to affect the countries currency. It was losing its value so rapidly that at the end the ink and paper it was being printed on was too expensive. The money had become completely worthless. Thus resulting to all the money the citizens had in the bank accounts becoming worthless people were losing there funds.
Why Germany was incredibly affected by the Great Depression at the time was because; it was the only country in Europe at that point which was paying a debt. Since Germany was paying this debt to the league especially to France, they were benefiting these payments. Any money that Germany had was going to pay off the debt with the allies. Because of this there was no more money, and jobs the country was in a serious dilemma, and that resulted in the collapse of the Weimar Government. Once the government had collapsed the country was in pure disaster economically and now politically.
All these effects brought Germany to her knees. Since everything had collapsed meaning the economy, the government, there was no leader of the country to show the people what the country should do. This led to the uprising of the Nazi party who had taken charge of the government. Adolf Hitler was the leader of this party and promised to bring back Germany to her golden times. Since he was the only person in Germany who was taking responsibility the Germany people had taken him as their lead with open arms. At the time of Nazi party arrivals into the government already Germany was seeing a slight increase to their economy so you can assume that this benefited the party a lot in the public eye.
For all we know WWII could have been stopped very easily, if history would have been a little different. The rise of Hitler and his Nazi party could have been stopped, if Germany would have the chance to bring itself off its knees Hitler would have not gotten into power. But because Germany was constantly getting beat down to the ground the people were looking for anything or anyone who could show them positive results in the near future. If there was no debt to be paid by the German to the allies then Germany could have helped them during the Great Depression. However maybe if Germany was to be alright during the depression, another country would have take the fall, and that country would have a Nazi party take charge. If that was the case France would be the country which would have taken the place of Germany if they were to find out a way from the depression.
Overall the Great Depression had brought massive negative effects across the world. Germany was one of the unfortunate countries to lose practically everything they had during this time. It does not surprise me that Germany took a leader like Adolf Hitler during that time. Anything would have been good for the German people; all they wanted was someone to bring order and reform back to Germany. The Great Depression combined with another effects were some of the darkest times for Germany and it people. It can be said that because of Germany suffering during the Great Depression lead to greater events in history which will also be remembered.
Sunday 20 March 2011
Sunday 23 January 2011
Evaluate the successes and failures of the Paris Peace conference in creating a stable European Community in the post WWI era.
World War One changed and had many affects on the world during its time and is still remembered today many years after it took place. But what is mainly remembered from the war is how the world’s countries and borders were changing at a rapid speed during the Paris Peace conferences. The Paris Peace conferences were made up of the 29 countries including the allied countries that were fighting during the war. The major aims of the Paris Peace conferences were to discus and create peace terms for the defeated German empire, and other fallen empires or countries that lost during World War One. The conferences were held in the city Paris, France and took place 1919-1920. Those years Paris could have been considered the centre of the world, for what was to happen would change Europe that they knew it, and make it the one we know today. But of course with everything in history there were the success and failures that occur.
The success of the peace conferences did impact Europe in a dramatic way. Not only politically but physically at the same time. During the war one of the main problem that occurred was that genocide had happened to different groups who were living all around Europe. The Armenian genocide was the biggest one that took place during that time. Because of what the Ottoman Empire had done to the Armenians it was decided at the Treaty of Sevres that a country would be formed for the Armenians to live on. Many more countries were formed by the Paris Peace conferences from the lands of the fallen empires that had lost. Not only the new countries had benefited from the conferences, but countries that had existed prior to the war had received their lands back for example Greece was given the land that was taken from the Ottoman Empire.
It was one thing to cut up the central powers and create these lands into new independent countries, but the setback from this was what would happen to the people who were already on the lands. This was a failure from the conferences not to think ahead before the problems took effect. There were fights between the people who had lived there and the ones who had gotten the lands from the agreements at the conferences. Thousands of people were displaced from their homes, and even did not have nationality because the borders had changed. Certain areas did not want to change their ways and kept on speaking their mother tongue. An example of this is South Tyrol was given Austrian land but was given to Italy till today they mostly speak German.
When the war had finished the allied powers did not want to risk the chance of another world war taking place. To do so the allied countries had made the central powers and their ally’s militaries limited so the chance of uprising for another war would be less of a chance. Nearly all of the treaties had written that the central powers and their allies (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottomans, and Bulgaria) had to cut down on their soldiers, canoed ships, air force. Some countries did not have more then 20,000 solider in their armies. Whilst other countries were not allowed to have a air force unit. By cutting off the military in a country you are at the same time affecting their economy.
These drastic changes which were taking place throughout Europe were making some countries rise and others fall and collapse. Germany was one of the countries which were falling. As a punishment to Germany the Allied powers did not let other countries to unite or reunite with the fallen empire. At the same The Central powers and their allies were forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the Allies as compensation because of the war. This made Germany and other countries economy fall because they had been not making a lot of money, and had to pay off this huge debt to the central powers.
The conferences were to bring stability into Europe after the war. But in reality the countries who had won wanted to become stronger in all ways. Certain countries did not get their independence. The only change was from being the colony of one country to another. An example of this was Syria and Iraq became mandates of Great Britain and France. As well in the far East China went to the conferences to get back the land that Germany had taken from them, but went home empty handed. The conferences were mainly benefitting the power hungry countries, not all the Allied countries benefited from the conferences such as Italy hardly got anything at all compared to what France and Great Britain.
From the Paris Peace conferences we saw what the emotion of people can to the world. Both good and bad things were seen from these conferences. But I would say that the overall outcome by the conferences was revenge. Of course there were good achievements which were made in the conferences, giving groups their own countries. But the allies wanted to make sure that a world war could not happen again, because they knew if the central powers had another chance to take against the allies they would, and maybe at that time they would succeed. It was not a secret that the allies wanted to crush the central powers both France and Britain always said that they were to easy on Germany when it came to the treaties.
The success of the peace conferences did impact Europe in a dramatic way. Not only politically but physically at the same time. During the war one of the main problem that occurred was that genocide had happened to different groups who were living all around Europe. The Armenian genocide was the biggest one that took place during that time. Because of what the Ottoman Empire had done to the Armenians it was decided at the Treaty of Sevres that a country would be formed for the Armenians to live on. Many more countries were formed by the Paris Peace conferences from the lands of the fallen empires that had lost. Not only the new countries had benefited from the conferences, but countries that had existed prior to the war had received their lands back for example Greece was given the land that was taken from the Ottoman Empire.
It was one thing to cut up the central powers and create these lands into new independent countries, but the setback from this was what would happen to the people who were already on the lands. This was a failure from the conferences not to think ahead before the problems took effect. There were fights between the people who had lived there and the ones who had gotten the lands from the agreements at the conferences. Thousands of people were displaced from their homes, and even did not have nationality because the borders had changed. Certain areas did not want to change their ways and kept on speaking their mother tongue. An example of this is South Tyrol was given Austrian land but was given to Italy till today they mostly speak German.
When the war had finished the allied powers did not want to risk the chance of another world war taking place. To do so the allied countries had made the central powers and their ally’s militaries limited so the chance of uprising for another war would be less of a chance. Nearly all of the treaties had written that the central powers and their allies (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottomans, and Bulgaria) had to cut down on their soldiers, canoed ships, air force. Some countries did not have more then 20,000 solider in their armies. Whilst other countries were not allowed to have a air force unit. By cutting off the military in a country you are at the same time affecting their economy.
These drastic changes which were taking place throughout Europe were making some countries rise and others fall and collapse. Germany was one of the countries which were falling. As a punishment to Germany the Allied powers did not let other countries to unite or reunite with the fallen empire. At the same The Central powers and their allies were forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the Allies as compensation because of the war. This made Germany and other countries economy fall because they had been not making a lot of money, and had to pay off this huge debt to the central powers.
The conferences were to bring stability into Europe after the war. But in reality the countries who had won wanted to become stronger in all ways. Certain countries did not get their independence. The only change was from being the colony of one country to another. An example of this was Syria and Iraq became mandates of Great Britain and France. As well in the far East China went to the conferences to get back the land that Germany had taken from them, but went home empty handed. The conferences were mainly benefitting the power hungry countries, not all the Allied countries benefited from the conferences such as Italy hardly got anything at all compared to what France and Great Britain.
From the Paris Peace conferences we saw what the emotion of people can to the world. Both good and bad things were seen from these conferences. But I would say that the overall outcome by the conferences was revenge. Of course there were good achievements which were made in the conferences, giving groups their own countries. But the allies wanted to make sure that a world war could not happen again, because they knew if the central powers had another chance to take against the allies they would, and maybe at that time they would succeed. It was not a secret that the allies wanted to crush the central powers both France and Britain always said that they were to easy on Germany when it came to the treaties.
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